Make sure your Skyrim root folder is away from your Windows drive (not 100% required but very recommended) and install MO2 as portable in a new folder you create inside the root one. I’m not going to give you extensive tutorials on how to use MO2 because that would make this guide way too long, but when you first start it, it will offer to teach you the basics so make sure you go through that beginner tutorial that’s built into it. You will be able to download mods directly into it. When installing MO2, at the bottom of the options make sure to check the handle Nexus links box and then later when you start it up, enter your Nexus account information. There are other ones out there, but this one is the best, at least in my ( and many other people’s) opinion. The first thing you need is a robust mod management utility.

To get started, make sure you’ve got 7zip & NexusMods account. And don’t go crazy with too many mods or the game might not even start if you have a lot of conflicts. Some mods work between the editions ( textures are always fine but not meshes) but generally you want to stick to the one you’re using. I personally recommend Skyrim SE due to improved stability, 64bit engine and generally much better performance and less crashes ( very important if you have a lot of demanding mods). So if you’re playing on Skyrim LE, use this to get your mods. The process is the same for Skyrim LE ( Legendary Edition) & Skyrim SE ( Special Edition), the only difference is the version of the mods that you’re downloading (and SKSE, Skyrim Script Extender). So whether you were looking for this guide, or the general modding guide ( no difference), I’ve made sure to cover all bases. So I did the video just with him in mind, but later it turns out there are just as many people looking for this guide, as well as the general one ( which are the same by the way), hence this page here. At the time I didn’t really think there would be many people out there searching for this, rather that they would look for a guide on how to install Skyrim mods in general. A long time ago a viewer on Youtube asked me to do a video on how to install SkyUI.

Skyrim skyui special edition